Airport Extreme (802.11n) - Connection drops (no auto-reset)

Another me too..

I thought I was one of the lucky ones that didn't have issues with Airport. Bought mine last week and it was working perfectly for 5 days. Don't know if my luck ran out today or if me plugging my printer into it triggered something.

Tried changing channels and hard resetting it. But I still get dropped randomly -- can be quickly or after an hour.

Here's what I got - the moment I connect with anything IPv6 the whole system goes to pot.

First it was randomly resetting - so I "disabled" IPv6 to local on the Extreme (Manual Setup, Advanced, IPv6, IPv6 mode "Local-link only") This calmed things down. I also turned off IPv6 on my laptop.

Now here's the hysterical part. I plug in an Airport Express - and things work ok for a moment. But the moment I connect to anything through the express (via over the air or the built-in ethernet port) the whole system falls over. The gateway "disappears" according to TiVo's message - but my laptop, still bound to the Extreme wirelessly, also loses its internet connection. In fact, after a moment, the Extreme refuses to talk to the express anymore. I unplug the Express, turn off the offending device, plug the Express back in, and everything works again. Once another device connects to the Express - we fall over again. Haven't tested if my PC, network wired in to the Extreme, stays connected.

The Airport Express doesn't seem to have the ability to turn of IPv6 (the extreme "says" you can, by setting it to Local only, but all log entries for host connections are still IPv6 - just masked with "ffff" at the front).

The 7.2.1 firmware is listed as fixing their IPv6 implementation because, and I quote: "Remote attackers may be able to adversely affect network performance" - so apparently now my IPv6 Airport Express is a hostile. No wonder everyone's eager to just get back to 7.1 - I'll take my risks with my neighbors screwing up my traffic over Apple's own devices doing so.

Smells like one screwed up IPv6 implementation in the Extreme, with the similar firmware issues posted for their USB disk access, Expresses, etc. That I would again like to remind everyone were first reported to these forums in late September. Isn't it mid-November?

To clarify on my last post - the Express in this case is working in bridge mode to the extreme.

What's even more funny is that devices that connect to the Express connect all the way through to the Extreme because I have DHCP reservations set up on the Extreme. I even fiddled with the reservation addresses to verify it connects all the way through every time. But the moment the device starts talking through the Express (which is IPv6 and masks the connecting device as such) over the air to the Extreme and then the internet at large, the Extreme flips out, everything wireless stops working, and eventually it boots the Express. Connecting the same device straight through the Extreme works fine, even without a reset.

This did work for a few days (same as others have reported). I wonder what the Extreme could possibly suddenly latch on to and cause the whole thing to fall over. Is Apple keeping routing devices/tables in some sort of persistent memory that even survives a hard reboot?

I'm going to set up my PC in the morning to use IPv6 packets over the wire and see if that explodes it as well. But for now, bedtime.

Yet another "me too". I just got my AEBS two days ago, and it's consistently dropping the wireless signal - indicator light stays green, but the network just disappears. Only fix is to unplug/replug.

I'm considering just returning the AEBS and getting something else - this is ridiculous considering the price.

I've had the same problem for a few months now - 'all' connections (both wifi and ethernet) drop periodically (few times a day for < 1 minute). My upgrade to Leopard didn't seem to affect it one way or the other. I've put up with it as irritating. But, now I am running a webserver through it - and the drops are intolerable.

I've given up without trying the IPv6 over wired thing. I'm taking back the two Express base stations today, as they are within the 30 day return period. No product is worth this much effort. I would've held on longer if it hadn't been so long without a word from Apple that there even is a problem - no news gives me no confidence that they're going to fix this anytime soon.

Having been reading this and discovering that their remote disk on the Extreme isn't a supported Time Machine - I'm going to be trying to take that back as well. Wish me luck - back to running wires.

I'll buy everything again probably when they get these gremlins worked out, but until then I had a very nicely working 100MB / Wireless G network.

Has anyone had any luck with downgrading from 7.2.1 to 7.2? I did it last night and have had no drop issues for the past 12 hours. Just wondering if this is a temporary fix until I start having to unplug and plug my AEBS again or if I can get by until Apple decides to get another firmware fix.

Me tooo! All of sudden I will lose conection and the light is still green. Did not do it before installing Leoprad, just did a clean install of Leopard on the macbook and it is still happening.

I might give it a last go tonight if you've had some success. My only concern is based on the fact that this is a "time degrading issue" I'm going to put 7.2 up only to have it start exhibiting this behavior in 5 days. That's what several people complained about in the Disk forum.

Either way, I'll return at least one of the Expresses since it's 30 days are up before I find out if this falls over in 4-5 days, and I'm not feeling confident yet.

I'm not trying to be a pill by saying "I'm taking my ball and going home" - I just figure it helps any Apple Engineers or Execs translate these complaints into actual $$/Revenue issues - $400 bucks is the most I've spent on a home network infrastructure. I already feel burned by getting an Extreme 40 days ago now with the promise of it working with Timewarp only to watch that expectation evaporate. And I'd have never bought the Expresses since they don't out of the box bridge with any other solution.

I've previously tried 7.2 and I found that the AEBS reboots rather than freezing. This is slightly preferable; at least one doesn't have to unplug the thing. 7.2 seems to reboot with about the same frequency that 7.2.1 freezes.

Currently on the phone with applecare. Really nice guy helping me out. He was very apologetic while telling me that Apple is 'aware of the issues of MB and MBPs with Airport Extremes.' They even have a survey that they have you answer as they talk to you about your problems.... kinda sad really....

Anyone know how to get 7.2 firmware? I've tried all the tricks to get it including the hold down the option and ctrl buttons. No matter what I do, I can't find it. Applecare specialist says he can't find it either so must be a serious reason they no longer offer it....

I'll rest assured knowing Apple is working the problem ;0)

To get 7.2 I had to connect my laptop via hardwire to the device.

1) Connect laptop (or other config device) via ethernet cable
2) Start Airport Utility
3) Click the Extreme, Click Manual Setup
4) In the Summary Page, click next to the firmware, you should be given the option to select the old one if you had it before.

Note that - for whatever reason - *doing this wirelessly didn't work*. I found that particular tidbit in the disk issues with the Extreme forum.

This is why Apple needs to release a statement or some info page instead of relying on us to keep talking to each other. I get enough of the FUD routine at work every day. :-D

Thank you so much for this! I'll give it a try when I get home...

Did it fix your connection problems (if you had them)?

I was able to do the downgrade wirelessly with my MacBook. Odd. Anyway, the downgrade seems to be working okay. No dropped connections and no reboots after over 14 hours. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and waiting for this "time degarding issue" to kick in.

Haven't been able to test it out yet - MST TZ - still a little while before heading home. I saw a lot of success stories with the 7.1 firmware, but I can't tell if that would work with my Extreme since that seemed to be for the older model of hardware. I'd hate to make the thing non-operational. Finding decent tech docs on this stuff is nigh impossible.

I wish I could just turn off the IPv6 in the Expresses, since turning it off on the Extreme and my PowerBook seemed to cause it to have less heartburn. I'll poke at that some more - still not used to having to do this kind of after-market QA work with Apple products.